November 2011
1 post
2 tags
Thesis Presentation May 7, 2011
Over a weekend in early May, 15 graduates of the 2011 RISD MFA in Graphic Design Program delivered their final presentations to an audience of other students, faculty and advisors in a conference room at 169 Weybosset Street in Providence, Rhode Island. The graduates were afforded 50 minutes to describe their area of inquiry, situate it in the historical and creative context and present their own...
October 2010
3 posts
3 tags
This unlovable, unlivable language
Image of the house from The Wittgenstein House by Bernhard Leitner, 2000.
Although Wittgenstein’s writings insist on the futility of becoming an expert outside of one’s sphere on knowledge, the existence of his house in Vienna provides one with an opportunity to talk about his architecture in the context of his writing. Though as Bernhard Leitner warns in his The Wittgenstein House:...
2 tags
Erasures
Each time we walk through a city we are constructing our own personal city. As one skims a familiar book, recognizing phrases and sentences read long ago, reading over the choicest parts, the walker traverses the grid of the city editing his own story out of the text spread out in front. The architecture, geography, sounds and texts of the city collage together to create an indelible presence of...
3 tags
Memory Markers
An architectural landmark can help anchor the grid of a city, just like a large atrium can help organize and assign order and meaning to the internal space of a building. Buenos Aires’ Obelisco draws the population of the city out for political rallies and celebrations of futbol victories. By functioning as a symbol of the city, it elevates any event that it witnesses to the status of being...